Monticello firefighters alerted to Hatzalah-impostor problem
By Heather Yakin
Times Herald-Record
hyakin@th-record.com Monticello - Already this summer, at a car wreck on Route 17, the
impostors showed up.
The men responding at emergency scenes claim to be members of Catskill
Hatzalah, the volunteer ambulance corps that sends from 250 to 300 emergency
medical technicians and 11 ambulances to Sullivan County each summer.
"There are a lot of people who come to calls who are not Hatzalah
personnel. They get in our way, and they get in your way," said Yedidyah
Langsam, a coordinator with Catskill Hatzalah.
He met yesterday with Monticello firefighters at the Monticello fire
station. This was their seventh annual meeting, a tradition established to
lay out the groundwork for cooperation.
Langsam encouraged the firefighters to move impostors off the scene and
not to be shy about it.
The firefighters said they've been reluctant to be too forceful because
they don't want to offend the Orthodox community.
Every summer, tens of thousands of people from Boro Park in Brooklyn,
Monsey in Rockland County and other points southeast flock to the Sullivan
County Catskills.
For the past 24 years, Catskill Hatzalah has come, too, with ambulances
and EMTs. Catskill Hatzalah is affiliated with Chevrah Hatzolah of New York
City, the largest volunteer ambulance service in the world. They're staffed
by Orthodox Jews - by people just like the folks who flock here for the
summer.
On the occasions when there has been a problem, it's been with other
people, said Carl Houman, Monticello's director of fire services.
"Whenever we've gotten to a call when they're truly Hatzalah, there's
never a problem," he added.
Fire Chief Glenn Somers brought up a summer 2004 incident where a small
boy was hit by a truck at a Joyland Road camp. The county E-911 center was
trying to dispatch a helicopter, and at the same time Hatzalah was trying to
do the same. The result was confusion.
This year, Langsam said, only 911 will launch choppers.
Langsam explained that all Hatzalah members carry photo ID cards with
holographic stickers. Their cars are all equipped with medical equipment
based on the member's level of certification, and each bears both a Hatzalah
sticker with an expiration date and a Department of Health ambulance
registration.
And all Hatzalah members are required to wear a bright yellow emergency
vest at any scene. If the guy isn't wearing a vest, Langsam told the
firefighters, tell him to go home.